


Hold Me Without Hurting Me

by orphan_account



Series: House Rarepairs [2]
Category: House M.D.
Genre: Caring James Wilson (House M.D.), Childhood Trauma, Established Relationship, Fear of Abandonment, Hurt/Comfort, Love, M/M, Nightmares, Past Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicidal Thoughts, idk why my headcanon wilson uses so many pet names he literally doesn't talk like this, lowkey BPD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:56:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22084516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Chase has a difficult night. Wilson tries to help.Additional stuff in notes.
Relationships: Robert Chase/James Wilson
Series: House Rarepairs [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1582174
Comments: 5
Kudos: 36





	Hold Me Without Hurting Me

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a conversation with smallredboy about Chase's Issues (TM) - thanks for letting me borrow your headcanon!
> 
> Trigger warnings for mentions of childhood trauma/abuse (nothing graphic) and suicidal thoughts. (I'll stop whumping poor Chase at some point, I promise. Ya girl just needed some shameless hurt/comfort).

**12:00am**

Wilson snores.

Not loudly. He doesn't sound like a tractor getting into a fist fight with a plane, like some people do. It's a gentle, throaty sound. Almost cute.

Chase's chest is pressed against his back, an arm over his waist. Wilson's legs are curled towards his stomach, and he's so still, like a mannequin. If Chase doesn't wake him tonight, he'll stay in that exact same position until his alarm goes off.

He embodies peace; a model sleeper. Chase burns with envy. 

He closes his own eyes, slipping his head closer to Wilson's on the pillows, until he can feel the heat radiating from the nape of his neck. He reminds himself of the facts. He's at home. He's pushing thirty, he has his career, he has Wilson, and he has choices. He isn't dependent on anyone. Nobody can hurt him anymore.

He doesn't need to lie awake and listen out in case his mother falls down the stairs whilst trying to find the bathroom.

He doesn't need to lie awake in case his sister gets frightened by the yelling from downstairs and wants to sleep in his bed.

He doesn't need to lie awake so he won't be startled out of sleep if his father comes home late and angry and storms up to his bedroom.

But Chase lies awake, and even in his adult body, even with his boyfriend in his arms, he feels twelve again.

He scratches the back of his neck as he wanders into the living room, quietly shutting the door before turning on the light. Before he moved in with Wilson, he didn't go to bed much at all. He'd put it off for as long as he could. He'd make coffee at 11pm. He'd sit at the kitchen table and read the same fantasy books he'd escape into as a kid, still finding a warped sense of comfort in their intricate, surreal worlds. He'd watch TV until the late night informercials and cartoon re-runs sedated him for a mere two hours before he'd have to get up and start the day. 

Now, though, there's a little amber vial on the coffee table before him as he lowers himself onto the sofa. It's convenient, he thinks, that his sleeping meds should happen to end up here, when he was sure he put them in the bathroom cabinet this morning. Funny, how Wilson seems to know when he's due a bad night, even when he hasn't said anything. Maybe it was the way he flinched when Wilson accidentally knocked over his beer earlier. Perhaps he'd seemed needier than usual, pressing himself close to Wilson in an unspoken plea to be held and stroked while they watched TV. Wilson might have caught the flash of panic in Chase's eyes when he yawned and declared that he needed to sleep. 

When will Wilson get tired of this? When will he declare that he can't deal with it anymore?

Chase holds the bottle of Imovane up to the light and counts the pills lying within. Ten left. He unscrews the cap and shakes one out into his hand before swallowing it dry. He gulps at the bitterness of it. How does House do this several times a day? As an afterthought, he holds his throat and creeps to the kitchen for a glass of water.

He should really go back to bed, he should. Prepare for his usual stretch of tossing and flailing, of denying Wilson another night's rest. The fact that he never makes a single complaint about it makes it even worse.

He decides to sleep on the couch. He drapes himself across it and lays a stray cushion beneath his head, pressing it against his cheek and inhaling. It smells like Wilson, and if he can't sleep next to him, that will have to be comfort enough.

Nine pills left in the vial. Chase holds it tightly in his hand, feeling its smooth glass walls press against the delicate flesh of his palm, and he considers swallowing them all.

When he closes his eyes, his mind conjures up an image of Wilson finding him in the morning with his pupils unresponsive and his pulse a mere whimper. He can taste his disgust. How could he even _think_ of doing that to him?

**

_Chase has missed the bus home from school._

_He's trying to walk. It's only a couple of miles; not far to the house he's lived in his whole life. He's done this journey 5 days out of 7 every week for as long as he can remember. He should know the way - he_ does _know the way - but he just can't get there._

_It's hot, and he can feel little rivulets of sweat creating paths down his back. He realises that, somehow, he's lost._

_He swears the streets are duplicating, with their wide roads and pavements blanketed with autumn leaves. Houses, big houses with proud driveways and immaculate exteriors. All of them could be his, but none of them are. He doesn't recognise the cars outside. He's at least an hour late, and his sister will be hungry, and his mother will be hammered and yelling, and fuck... it's Wednesday._

_Dad always gets home early on Wednesday._

_Chase quickens his pace, scanning his surroundings for other pedestrians. He tries to flag down a passing car, but they almost seem to swerve to avoid him. He has to find out where he is. Someone must be able to give him directions. Someone at least must be able to tell him the time, because if it's past four, his father will be pulling up outside the house, and if Chase isn't there..._

_It's crazy, it's utterly barking of him, but he tugs on the door handle of a nearby parked car. He can't drive. He has no idea how to hotwire, besides what he's seen on action movies... but he'll figure it out._

_It's locked. Of course it's locked._ _He curses loudly. Perhaps he can smash the passenger window._

_If he gets arrested, maybe he'll never have to go back home again._

_As he looks around him for something, anything, he might be able to use to break into the car, he catches sight of his face in the wing mirror. His sweat has washed away the concealer he swiped from his mother's make up box, and the bruise on his jaw is almost translucent. It's so much worse than he remembers._

_Then someone's calling his name, and all he wants to do is run._

**

**3:00am**

"You're safe." Wilson's lips move against Chase's hair as he holds his head to his chest with one hand, an arm firm around his shoulders. "It's okay, darling. I've got you."

Chase is groggy from the Imovane. He places both hands flat on Wilson's chest, but doesn't allow himself to cling. If he starts letting himself participate in Wilson's attempts at comfort, he'll feel the loss of it too hard when Wilson finally has enough and leaves.

Wilson's pyjama shirt is soft against his damp cheeks. His mouth is dry as fur as he murmurs, "I can't believe I woke you up again."

"Don't worry about it." Wilson's eyes are half their usual size, pink and bleary with sleep. He presses a kiss to his forehead before adding, "that sounded like one hell of a dream."

Chase shrugs, because it actually wasn't. "Not really."

Wilson is so calm, making little patterns against Chase's scalp with his fingertips. So quiet, so unfazed. 

He doesn't remember drifting off. The living room light is still on, the TV he decided to watch as an afterthought playing a repeat of some old sitcom. Chase doesn't dare to ask what he was doing in his sleep, but he knows he really must have been yelling to wake Wilson from the next room.

Wilson takes his hand, brushing his knuckles against his lips. "I love you."

"I love you too," he murmurs in return.

He always says it so cautiously, like he's testing a lie. Many others before him have said it. They might have slipped it out on the first date, or cried it in the throes of passion. Sometimes, they wailed it through sham tears to stop him from leaving. Never was it truly meant.

Never did anyone else say it repeatedly, then ask him to move in. And they certainly never said it at all when they found out about the nightmares, the flashbacks, the meds, the panic attacks.

Wilson doesn't seem like the others. He never sulks or pesters Chase when he isn't interested in making love, phases that can last days, weeks at a time. He's never told Chase he's embarrassing. He has never, as one boyfriend did, tell him his meds were just placebos, a ploy by Big Pharma to squeeze money out of him. Chase remembers that one well; how he was regarded with such scorn, how he eventually stopped taking them just to appease him. Years of medical training, squashed down, forgotten, just to hold onto a guy who never even answered his phone.

Wilson doesn't seem like the others, but that doesn't mean he's not.

Chase feels pathetic. 

"What did you dream?" Wilson asks, after a while.

When Chase looks up, he meets eyes that are brimming with love and concern, and he wonders how long it will be before that's snatched away from him.

He always struggles with this part. Wilson's a talker. Wilson thinks if he can just prise the details out, if he can just know everything, then he can fix it. There are moments where it's never been more clear to Chase just why he gets along so well with House.

"It was..." Chase tries. He really does. "Well, I was..."

He chews his lip, and Wilson waits, those fingers ever present and soft in his hair. Chase can feel his eyes closing.

"I can't remember," he lies, eventually. If he tells Wilson he just doesn't want to talk about it, perhaps he'll get angry.

"It's okay, darling." Another soft kiss to his temple, and Chase dares to believe him. "What do you need now?"

It's certainly true that no one else has ever asked Chase that. It's also true that he has no fucking idea. So he goes with what his body tells him. "Sleep. But... in here."

Wilson nods. "I'll stay with you."

Gently, Wilson maneuvers him back onto the couch, until he's lying down. Chase sighs and doesn't move, despite how much he wants to protest he'll be fine. Despite how little he wants to put Wilson through another night of his bullshit. But there'd be no use arguing with him.

So instead, he watches quietly as Wilson gets up and retrieves a balled up throw from the armchair nearby. Sitting back down, he stretches out next to him and drapes the blanket over their legs. It's too small to cover them both completely, but as Wilson lays himself out next to him and draws him into a warm, soft embrace, it hardly matters.

As Wilson closes his eyes, he whispers, "I'm not going anywhere, Robert. I promise you."

**

_Chase is running. He stops at the end of the street, jogging in place, trying to remember if it's left or right. It's getting dark._

_He chooses right._

_He hopes his sister has found somewhere to hide. Just until he can get there. Even if she hasn't, he hopes she's praying. She'll feel better if she prays._ _Chase doesn't have time to indulge in such things himself._

_He thinks he recognises that oak tree outside of the house with the blue car. Can't be far now._

_The streetlights are starting to wake up. Time is slowing down. Running out._

_His mind taunts him with the scene waiting for him at home. Rather than his mother throwing her arms around him with a tearful cry of "I was so worried!", she'll be sinking neat gin in the back room, singing along to the radio and thinking little of his absence. His father will be waiting for him in the living room, ready to accuse him of staying out to do drugs and other things that would never even cross his mind. He'd never believe that Chase just couldn't find his way home. Even Chase can't believe it._

_And if Chase doesn't get there soon, he'll take his rage out on his mother._

_He runs, and he runs, turning corners, and he stops when he realises that once again, he has no idea where he is._

_He can't breathe. He doubles over, hands on his knees, head throbbing. His clothes are soaked, his heart screaming against his ribcage._

_Just as he collapses to the ground, a car pulls up beside him. He recognises the licence plate. He doesn't have to look at the figure climbing out of the driver's side to know that it's over. To know that if his father actually came out looking for him, then he's too late. The damage at home will already have been done._

_He curls into a ball against the concrete and waits._

**

Chase startles upright, groping at the air around him. A sob catches in his throat as Wilson's arms encircle his torso, quiet "shush"es spilling into his ears.

His lungs are thick with Melbourne's heat, and he has to grab onto Wilson to make sure he's real. 

**

**6:00am**

Chase hears the whir of Wilson's hairdryer before he even opens his eyes.

The second thing he notices is that he's cold. Wilson has draped the blanket over him the best he can, but it still only reaches his waist. Goosebumps prickle over his biceps, and he gropes for it, throwing it around his shoulders instead. He wraps himself up as if he could disappear. He wants to be so small that he could lose himself in the soft material, hide from the world forever.

He rolls over to see that Wilson has left a cup of coffee, his Paxil and a fresh glass of water out on the coffee table. When he presses his fingertips to the mug, it's cold, indicating that Wilson must have been awake for a while. Guilt prickles in his chest.

He takes his pill and gets to his feet. He stands in the centre of the living room for a while, aimless, trying to pluck up the courage to wander down the hall and see Wilson in the bathroom. He hesitates. Sure, he's never seen Wilson angry with him. But he never saw the others angry until they were. Until they told him they couldn't sleep in the same bed with him anymore. Until they were out at a restaurant and Chase saw a man who resembled his father so much he had to insist they leave. Everyone has their limits, he would always reason, amidst the heartbreak. Even as his trust chipped away to nothing.

Chase makes it as far as the bedroom before he has to sit down again, rubbing his hands over his face. His eyes are heavy, and he can feel the bags forming beneath his fingers. The Imovane always makes his head feel like a ball of cotton, which seems like a steep price to pay given that it barely even works. And then, Wilson talking him down every time he woke himself up. Wilson kissing him and holding him and telling him he was safe, even as the dreams got worse and worse. When will he realise that he's wasting his breath?

He'd be a fool to think that Wilson plans to deal with this long term. And Wilson would be a fool to think that he could.

The hairdryer stops. Chase sniffs and probes within himself for the motivation to get up, to start rifling through his underwear drawer, to start behaving like a functioning adult. Like someone Wilson would be proud to be with.

When he comes through the bathroom door, comb in hand, he startles a little at the sight of Chase on the bed. But he smiles. "Morning, love," he says. "How are you feeling?"

There's a pallor, a greyish hue to his skin today, just like there always is after the really bad nights, and the sight makes Chase ache.

"I'm okay." He shrugs. "You, err... you probably could have slept in a little longer."

Wilson hesitates, then seems to force a smile. "It's okay. I was thinking of heading in a little early today anyway."

 _Is he mad?_

Chase follows him with his eyes as he crosses the room to the mirror, where he'll comb at imaginary stray hairs and pull at shirt creases invisible to all but him for the next few minutes. In fact, he's acting like nothing's happened.

This is it. This is how it starts. He must have had enough.

Chase swallows. "Thanks for getting my meds out. And for the coffee."

"No problem," Wilson replies, frowning as he tugs on his collar. As usual, whatever wardrobe malfunction he thinks he's experiencing, he's imagining it.

Chase smiles fondly. He can't imagine not having Wilson around anymore. Not getting ready with him in the mornings, making fun of him for how meticulously dressed he has to be at all times. Sitting in the passenger's seat on the way to work, scanning through radio stations that Wilson can't stand but allows him to play anyway. Parting ways in the foyer, stealing a quick kiss when they're sure no one's looking. Knowing that even if House doesn't let him out until midnight, Wilson will wait for him in his office with Chinese food until he finally finishes.

Chase shifts on the unmade bed, torn between wanting to crawl back into it and wishing he never had to sleep again. He curls his fingers around the edge of the blanket. The words dance on the tip of his tongue for an eternity before erupting: "Why are you with me?"

Wilson stops his fussing, turning his head. "What?"

Chase lowers his gaze. He can't bring himself to keep his eyes on his lover as he repeats, "why are you with me? I mean... why do you..."

He trails off, the flush of regret hot in his blood. It's six in the morning. It's not a good time to have a conversation that could effectively end their relationship. To make a statement that could get Wilson thinking, _hey, you're right. What the hell am I doing?_

Chase's hands are covering his face as Wilson approaches the bed, dropping to his haunches before him. A hand comes down on his shoulder, firm, reassuring. "Hey. Why would you say that?"

He shakes his head. Shrugs.

"Look at me, sweetheart." When he gently touches Chase's wrist, he immediately lowers his hands to his lap. Wilson slips his fingers through his, squeezing. "Talk to me. Tell me where that came from."

There's a pleading edge to his tone, one that Chase can't quite make sense of. It takes a moment for him to meet Wilson's gaze, and when he does, his eyes are so tired, and he hates himself.

"I keep you awake." He tells himself his voice is delicate from sleep deprivation, and prays that Wilson will think the same. "I never want to go out. I'm depressed all the time. Just..." He draws a breath, and it shudders, and he's exhausted. "What are you getting out of this?"

Wilson is silent for a moment. Then he sighs, the hand on his shoulder snaking upwards to cup his jaw. He strokes his cheek with the pad of his thumb as he murmurs, "I'm not here because I want something out of you. I'm here because I love you."

Chase bites his lip, covering the hand on his face with his own. Wilson's skin feels soft as butter, so warm. "I love you too." He dares to smile, even as his words catch on the lump in his throat.

"Darling, you're everything to me." Wilson leans up, pressing an awkward kiss to his chin. "You're perfect. I don't think anything would make me want to leave you."

Chase releases a sob that ends in an unsteady laugh. "What if I slept with House?"

"I'm sure I wouldn't be nearly as upset as Cameron." Wilson smiles too. "I'm not going anywhere. I want to help you."

Usually, Chase mumbles something in response to this assertion, or throws Wilson a deflection that would make House proud; just because he won't allow himself to really believe it. But there's something in Wilson's face that he hasn't permitted himself to see before. Something so earnest, so genuine.

It sparks a moment of courage.

"Will you hold me?" The request makes Chase feel so vulnerable, he can barely speak it audibly. But whether Wilson heard him or not, he seems to understand.

And for the first time in his life, Chase feels safe.


End file.
